The Europeanization of national foreign policy? The role of the EU CFSP/ESDP in crisis decision-making in Macedonia and Afghanistan.

Transcription

1 The Europeanization of national foreign policy? The role of the EU CFSP/ESDP in crisis decision-making in Macedonia and Afghanistan Eva Gross London School of Economics and Political Science Department of International Relations Thesis submitted to the University of London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations March 2007

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4 Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Introduction I. Aim of the thesis... 8 II. Research Question... 8 III. Contribution to literature IV. Case selection, Research Design and Methodology...15 V. Hypotheses generated from the conceptual approaches; some definitions 24 VI. Thesis outline Chapter 2. Conceptual Framework I. Introduction...30 II. International Relations Theory and EU Foreign and Security Policy...31 III. Governmental Politics...37 a. Applying FPA to the European context...38 b. Governmental politics in the EU CFSP/ESDP framework...40 IV. Europeanization a. Applying Europeanization to foreign and security policy...48 b. Defining Europeanization c. Operationalizing Europeanization...55 V. Alliance Politics a. Alliances in international politics...58 b. NATO since the end of the Cold W ar...59 c. Operationalizing Alliance Politics...61 VI. Conclusion...63 Chapter 3. The crisis in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the war in Afghanistan I. Introduction...65 II. FYROM...66 a. The significance of the crisis for EU foreign policy b. Background. The crisis in FYROM...67 c. Policy area 1: The negotiations leading to the Ohrid Framework Agreement.. 70 d. Policy area 2: NATO Operation Essential Harvest...77 e. Policy area 3: The politics of the ESDP takeover from NATO...80 f. Conclusion: questions raised by this case III. Afghanistan...84 a. The significance of Afghanistan for international security...84 b. Policy area 1: OEF and the war on terror c. Policy area 2: The reconstruction of Afghanistan...92 d. Policy area 3: ISAF and its institutional anchoring...96 e. Conclusion: questions raised by this case... 99

5 IV. Conclusion Chapter 4. Germany and the crisis in FYROM I. Introduction II. Policy area 1: Support for the EU CFSP in the political negotiations a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics III. Policy area 2: Participation in NATO Operation Essential Harvest a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics IV. The politics of the ESDP takeover from NATO a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics V. Conclusion Chapter 5. Germany and the war in Afghanistan I. Introduction II. Policy area 1: OEF and the war on terror a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics III. Policy area 2: The reconstruction of Afghanistan a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics IV. Policy area 3: German participation in ISAF a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics V. Conclusion Chapter 6. France and the crisis in FYROM I. Introduction II. Policy area 1: Support for the EU CFSP in the political negotiations a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics III. Policy area 2: Participation in NATO Operation Essential Harvest a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics IV. Policy area 3: The politics of the ESDP takeover from NATO a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics V. Conclusion Chapter 7. France and the war in Afghanistan I. Introduction II. Policy area 1: OEF and the war on terror a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics

6 III. Policy area 2: The reconstruction of Afghanistan a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics IV. Policy area 3: French participation in ISAF a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics V. Conclusion Chapter 8. Britain and the crisis in FYROM I. Introduction II. Policy area 1: Support for the EU CFSP in the political negotiations a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics III. Policy area 2: Participation in NATO Operation Essential Harvest a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics IV. Policy area 3: The politics of the ESDP takeover from NATO a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics V. Conclusion Chapter 9. Britain and the war in Afghanistan I. Introduction II. Policy area 1: OEF and the war on terror a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics III. Policy area 2: The reconstruction of Afghanistan a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics IV. Policy area 3: British participation in ISAF a. Europeanization b. Alliance Politics V. Conclusion Chapter 10. Conclusion I. Introduction II. Findings: the Europeanization of national foreign policy? a. The crisis in FYROM i. Policy area 1: Support for the EU CFSP in the political negotiations ii. Policy area 2: participation in NATO Operation Essential Harvest iii. Policy area 3: the politics of the ESDP takeover from NATO iv. Conclusion b. The war in Afghanistan i. Policy area 1: OEF and the war on terror ii. Policy area 2: The reconstruction of Afghanistan iii. Policy area 3: ISAF and its institutional anchoring iv. Conclusion

7 III. Theoretical implications: Europeanization a useful framework? IV. Conclusion Chronology: The crisis in FYROM Chronology: The war in Afghanistan List of abbreviations Bibliography

8 Acknowledgements During my time at the LSE I have benefited from the intellectual, personal and financial support from a number of individuals and sources. This thesis could not have been written without the guidance of my supervisor, Dr. Karen Smith, who was in equal parts challenging and supportive. Professor Christopher Hill offered useful advice on the selection of cases and Professor William Wallace was very helpful in getting me started on my research interviews. The Centre d Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) Sciences Po in Paris and the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels hosted me in the spring of 2005 and 2006, respectively, and provided me with a base of operations from which to undertake my research interviews. Professor Jolyon Howorth acted as my supervisor during my stay at CERI and was very helpful in providing me with contacts. Needless to say, I am grateful to all the officials in Berlin, Brussels, London and Paris who agreed to be interviewed for my thesis; although most have requested to remain anonymous I am happy to acknowledge their collective input and thank them for helping me understand how the policy-making process works and what considerations went into the decisionmaking in the two crises. My colleagues and friends at the LSE were a much needed source of intellectual as well as practical support - and diversion. Of course, thanks are also due to my friends outside the LSE. Last but certainly not least, I thank my family for their support. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support from a number of institutions. The LSE Department of International Relations awarded me Research Studentships in 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2006/07. My research was also supported by an ESRC +3 Studentship, and by a research grant from the VolkswagenStiftung, Germany as part of the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies research and training program in 2005/2006. Finally, a LSE Department of International Relations Travel Grant and the University of London Central Research Fund helped cover my field work expenses. 7

9 Chapter 1. Introduction. I. Aim of the Thesis This thesis analyzes British, French and German policies with respect to the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in two specific crises. In recent years much has been made of the ongoing Europeanization of national foreign policy, including security and defence policy.1since the end of the Cold War, and informed by the experience of the conflicts in the Balkans throughout the 1990s, EU member states have created European security institutions in order to be able to act independently from NATO and the US. Two countries in particular, Britain and France, have adjusted their national positions in order to make possible the creation of the EU ESDP in the first place. While there is more than one institutional tool at EU member states disposal in matters of international security, the broad question this thesis seeks to address is what circumstances, national preferences and crisis situations determine the choice and the extent of the use of political and military instruments located in the EU CFSP and ESDP as opposed to other institutional venues or bilateral initiatives. II. Research Question The two cases analyzed in this thesis are national policies towards the crisis in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the war in Afghanistan in These were the first two crises to occur after the creation of ESDP in 1999 that prompted significant political and military involvement on the part of EU member states. However, national responses towards the two crises with respect to the 1For the most recent academic studies see Wong (2006), Miskimmon (2004), Irondelle (2003). 8

10 involvement of instruments located in EU CFSP/ESDP were very different. Whereas the EU CFSP in the persona of EU High Representative Javier Solana was very active2 in the political mediation of the crisis in FYROM, initial suggestions for an ESDP take-over of the NATO Operation were rejected by EU member states. It was not until March 2003 that the first ever military ESDP mission, Operation Concordia, took over from NATO. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, the EU CFSP and ESDP both appeared to be eclipsed by the national considerations of member states, prompting concerns over a re-nationalization of foreign policy after 11 September (see Hill, 2004). Similarly, the suggestion by then-belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel that EU member states contributions to the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) constituted EU rather than national contributions was rejected. Moreover, NATO -not ESDP - assumed ISAF command in Unlike FYROM, the role of the EU CFSP and ESDP in Afghanistan has not fundamentally changed since the beginning of the political and military activities by the EU and its member states since the assumption of military tasks in Afghanistan 20013, and the further evolution of instruments located within CFSP/ESDP. Reactions towards the two crises, then, appear to contradict conclusions about the ongoing Europeanization of national foreign policy, particularly when it comes to the application of military instruments located in the EU ESDP: although the EU is in possession of military instruments, it did not employ them - or at least not immediately, in the case of FYROM - in two significant crises. The crises were significant for different reasons: FYROM threatened to de-stabilise once more the 2 And, as the analysis presented in chapter 3 will demonstrate, successful. 3 Although the EU has played an important role in the post-conflict reconstruction o f Afghanistan (Smith and Steffenson, 2005: 354) and although Javier Solana has recently stated that the EU stands ready to do even more to contribute to the collective effort and I think that an ESDP police operation could be of great value (see Council o f the European Union, 2006a), at the time o f writing of this thesis the nature o f the EU s engagement has not been expanded from economic and political to include military or civilian crisis management tools under the ESDP. 9

11 Western Balkans and to demonstrate the EU s inability to act; and the war in Afghanistan represented a systemic shock where member states quickly had to formulate and adopt policies on the US-led war on terror and the reconstruction of Afghanistan. This raises the following question that will be addressed in this thesis: What was the role afforded to the EU CFSP/ESDP in the management of the crisis in FYROM and the war in Afghanistan in national foreign policy decision-making in Britain, France and Germany, and why did it stop short of a military operation under the EU ESDP - initially in the case of FYROM and altogether in the case of Afghanistan? Focusing on decisions taken with regard to the EU CFSP and ESDP during these two crises promises to shed light on the underlying attitudes towards the European security institutions in the three countries when it comes to the application of available crisis management instruments. It will also allow me to draw broader conclusions on the role of CFSP/ESDP in national decision-making, and to determine whether and to what extent national foreign policies exhibit evidence of Europeanization in the sense that existing EU security institutions exert influence on individual governments to adapt their decision-making in favour of a larger role for the EU - or whether other considerations, such as the position or preferences of the US4 and the transatlantic alliance are more pertinent to explain specific policy outcomes in these two cases. 4 The inclusion of the US in addition to NATO is justified both on account of the U S central role in the management of the two crises as well as on account of the fact that the US certainly has a privileged position in terms of access to European decision-making, with some particularly special relationships with member states and individuals (...) it often succeeds in dividing and ruling the Europeans, as well as over-shadowing them in high politics (Hill and Smith, 2005: 394). 10

12 III. Contribution to Literature This particular research undertaking is situated on the cusp of traditional International Relations (IR) and European studies, but potentially makes a contribution to both by contrasting the Europeanization approach that arises out of integration studies with that of alliance politics.5 The hypotheses derived from the two approaches are integrated in a Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) model of governmental politics. Its purpose in this thesis is to analyse the domestic context of foreign policy decisionmaking in the two crises in order to derive conclusion as to the explanatory value of the two conceptual approaches, Europeanization and alliance politics. For scholars of international relations in general and of European foreign relations in particular, the question of how to analytically approach the role of the individual member states in the EU decision-making process and how to best capture the nature of this interaction has been a contentious one. As EU foreign policy cooperation has been argued to be less than supranational but more than intergovernmental (Wessels, 1982), theoretical approaches found in the mainstream IR literature have not always been entirely useful in addressing or explaining the processes of European foreign policy making more generally. Similarly, CFSP is too intergovernmental to fit comfortably within the framework of integration theories (0hrgaard, 2004). The existing literature on CFSP more generally has been dominated by empirical accounts of case studies that more often than not lack an explicit theoretical framework, leaving the study of CFSP at the pre-theoretical stage. 5 There is a longstanding debate over the extent to which European Studies and IR have theoretical or practical insights to give one another (Warleigh, 2006). European Studies, the argument goes, is located at the intersection between IR and comparative politics (Waever, 2004), has an interdisciplinary basis (Calhoun, 2003) and can act as a transmission belt for ideas concepts and approaches between the study of domestic politics and the study of international relations (Warleigh, 2006: 32). The Europeanization framework applied in this thesis has its roots in integration studies, and is combined here with traditional IR approaches; and the argument that emerges from the analysis o f the individual policy decisions taken is that neither o f the two approaches alone can adequately explain national policy decisions towards the two crises. 11

13 Because of the intergovernmental nature of decision-making in the EU CFSP (including ESDP), the policies and attitudes of national governments towards CFSP remain relevant as they are crucial not only for the institutional evolution of CFSP but also for its application: if CFSP is sidelined by national policy priorities, it cannot be expected to be an effective policy instrument. This research therefore proceeds from the assumption that member states policies and preferences are crucial in the formulation of policies adopted under CFSP. This in turn warrants a study that focuses solely on the national decision-making processes and the resulting decisions. This research locates potential explanations for national decision-making in three separate levels of analysis (see Singer, 1961). The impact of European institutions on national foreign policies as a result of Europeanization privileges the regional level of analysis and therefore regional institutions. Alliance politics, and the enduring relevance of NATO and US preferences to European security locates the explanation primarily at the systemic level6; whereas a focus on domestic politics based on a governmental politics approach focuses on the domestic level of analysis and assumes that domestic preferences and policy processes involving government agencies and ministries, elected government officials as well as the elite public sphere, determine policy outcomes. For the purpose of this thesis, the analysis of the underlying preferences and bargaining games among the different domestic actors is to draw conclusions on the explanatory power of Europeanization or alliance politics with respect to national decision-making in the two crises. 6 To be sure, NATO is a regional rather than a global alliance, and membership in NATO and the EU overlaps in the case o f the three countries analysed in this thesis. Moreover, the analysis of the two crises will show that some of the considerations over the use o f NATO rather than ESDP instruments were motivated by utilitarian considerations over the availability of military assets rather than systemic considerations. However, the preference of the US, both a NATO member and the remaining superpower in a unipolar system after the end of the Cold War, and preferences on the part of the three states to keep the US involved in European security through the transatlantic alliance, point towards the relevance o f the systemic level of analysis. 12

14 Europeanization focuses on the impact of the EU institutions on national politics, both as a potential platform to export policy preferences and as a constraint that influences national foreign policy making. The Europeanization approach conceptualizes EU institutions as exerting influence on national foreign policy through separate processes: the projection of national preferences, the adaptation of national policies, or the emergence or change of national preferences that privilege a European approach (Wong, 2005). Alliance politics and the preferences and attitudes towards and relations within the transatlantic alliance, on the other hand, assumes that the role of NATO along with US hegemony as a broader response to an anarchical international system plays a central role in the decision-making process that leads states to seek the preservation of existing alliances. Central within this alliance framework, of course, is also the role of the US in European -and global- security. The model of governmental politics, lastly, focuses on the domestic political conditions in the individual countries, and the way key participants in the political process bargain successfully to implement their policy preferences. In this context, the perception and preferences of key officials and bureaucracies, as well as the elite public sphere are important in assessing the choices for or against a larger role of the EU CFSP and ESDP in crisis decision-making. This in turn permits drawing some conclusions over which approach, Europeanization or Alliance politics, is more appropriate for explaining national foreign policy choices. The contribution of this particular research is two-fold. First, it applies approaches originating in the European integration and the IR paradigms, Europeanization and alliance politics as well as an FPA approach that focuses on domestic policy processes, to member states foreign policies to analyze the influence exerted by the EU CFSP/ESDP on policy decisions taken during two crises. And, it 13

15 \ does this in a case that involves hard politics: foreign security and defence policy, the bastion of state sovereignty (Howorth, 2005). If it can be shown that even in this area integration mechanisms are at work in the sense that existing EU institutions result in policy adaptation on the national level, this would weaken state-centric, liberal intergovemmentalist analyses (see Moravcsik, 1993) that argue that outcomes of bargaining between member states are determined by the preferences and bargaining power of states. Applied to the EU CFSP/ESDP, this approach attributes the major decision-making power to the member states, and assumes that domestic preferences are fixed and unaffected by normative concerns and interstate bargaining processes.7 Alternatively, if there is no or only weak evidence of Europeanization, then this would strengthen the state-centric approaches located in the IR paradigm. Lastly, both approaches located in a systemic theory (alliance politics) and regional integration theory (Europeanization) would be weakened if it were to be shown that specific domestic political considerations that do not point towards systemic or regional preferences conditioned policy responses in these two crises. The second contribution of this research lies in the actual cases selected. There is a small but growing literature on the activities of the EU CFSP and ESDP in FYROM and the Western Balkan region in general (Piana, 2002; Ioannides, 2006; Juncos, 2006) to which this research adds. Little has been written on member states policy towards Afghanistan from the perspective of the EU CFSP (Gross, 2006), and this research therefore stands to make an original contribution in this respect. While there have been some academic analyses of the Europeanization of national foreign policy (Keatinge, 1983; Torreblanca, 2001; Tonra, 2001; Wong, 2006), these have tended to focus either on smaller member states (Keatinge, 1983; Tonra, 2001), the 7 Although Moravcsik does not concern himself with EU foreign and security policy, his theoretical approach has been applied to the analysis of policy-making in EU CFSP/ESDP (see Gegout, 2004). 14

16 impact of EU accession on national foreign policy (Torreblanca, 2001), or have not focused exclusively on foreign and, importantly, security policy of the bigger member states (Wong, 2006). The original contribution this research makes, therefore, is to apply the Europeanization approach to an analysis of the policies of the big three member states in the area of security and defence - and to do so in a comparative framework. Based on the empirical analysis undertaken, this thesis demonstrates that while policy decisions taken with respect to the two crises show evidence of Europeanization in all three countries, considerations of alliance politics both with a view to the role of NATO as well as US preferences, have tended to take precedence when it came to the application of military instruments - with the exception of the French position towards an ESDP take-over from NATO in FYROM, which shows evidence of Europeanization. The governmental politics approach, finally, highlights domestic and intra-govemmental processes that reveal not only internal divisions and differences of opinions with respect to preferences that would point towards Europeanization and alliance politics, but also the extent to which national priorities have influenced these policy decisions. While there is evidence of the Europeanization of foreign policy, then, this does not apply to security and defence policy with respect to the two crises analysed in this thesis. IV. Case selection, Research Design and Methodology This is a qualitative research project that analyzes the impact of the EU CFSP/ESDP on the national policies of Britain, France and Germany. Britain and France naturally lend themselves as country case studies for this thesis. Not only are they the two biggest military powers in Europe, Paris and London also adapted their long-held 15

17 policy views to make the creation of ESDP possible in the first place. The inclusion of Germany as a third case is justified both by the fact that Germany is the biggest country in the EU and by the fact that significant military operations are unlikely to take place without Berlin s approval and increasingly also participation. The big three -Germany, Britain and France- are also the three countries expected to take the diplomatic lead on policy matters pertaining to the EU CFSP, and have been the driving forces behind the policy s creation and evolution. The end of the Cold War presented a strong impetus for improving European security and foreign policy coordination. Although European Political Cooperation (EPC), created in 1970, had the aim of establishing the EU as a foreign policy actor, policy means available were of a declaratory nature, and policy implementation took o place using Community instruments, such as aid programmes or economic sanctions. The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht institutional! zed EPC mechanisms in the new Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Reforms outlined in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam included the provision for a High Representative, and the establishment of a CFSP Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit. The wars in the Balkans starkly underlined the EU s shortcomings in the field of foreign and security policy (see Gow, 1997; Howorth, 2005; Lucarelli, 2000), although the first Gulf War in 1991 had already demonstrated the degree of dependence of the participating EU states on the US and NATO, further underlining the need for the incorporation of a security and defence component to the EU structures (Duke, 1999). The EU ESDP, created in 1999, represents a new security institution that has moved the EU into a policy realm previously reserved for NATO. The purpose of 8 Defence and military security issues were explicitly excluded. A second strand of European foreign policy, security politics, included the creation of the Western European Union (WEU) in 1954, even if the WEU was throughout the Cold War neglected in favour of the transatlantic defence structure (Duke, 1999). 16

18 ESDP is to complete and strengthen the EU's external ability to act through the development of civilian and military capabilities for international conflict prevention and crisis management. Although the idea of a European foreign and defence policy preceded the end of the Cold War, the creation of corresponding institutions was precluded by conflicting positions of member states on the purpose and the existence of European security and defence institutions. The changing positions of member states towards the creation of a European security and defence policy thus makes the analysis of member states positions towards the application of instruments located in the CFSP/ESDP an important subject for further research. The changing positions of Britain, France, and Germany towards the evolution of European security institutions were crucial in the evolution of CFSP and ESDP instruments as well as their future application. Throughout the Cold War, efforts at creating mechanisms for coordination in the areas of security and defence stalled on account of the lack of support for a European foreign policy independent of NATO among atlanticist member states -Britain in particular- and French unwillingness to consider foreign policy cooperation that excluded defence issues (Smith, 2004). This makes this particular research endeavour of dual interest: for one, it analyzes the positions of those member states that had been furthest apart from one another with respect to the creation and purpose of the EU CFSP/ESDP; with one (France) rooted in the Europeanist camp and the other (Britain) in the Atlanticist camp -w ith the third (Germany) situated somewhat uneasily between the two. The election of a Labour government under Tony Blair in 1997 proved to be a key factor for the future development of CFSP and ESDP (see Whitman, 1999). Along with Blair s commitment to a greater British role within Europe to counterbalance French-German dominance and the recognition that European 17

19 autonomy did not have to mean emancipation from NATO but improvement of European means inside the alliance, London dropped its objections to an autonomous European defence for the first time and made possible the creation of ESDP (Howorth, 2000: ). In contrast, German attitudes to the use of force have undergone a significant transition since the end of the Cold War. This makes Germany an interesting case on purely domestic grounds: Germany s international engagement since the end of the Cold War had been guided largely by the principles of German post-world War II foreign policy - multilateralism and a culture of restraint with regards to the use of military force (Maull, 2000). However, the historical taboo against the use of force increasingly eroded in light of post-cold War realities, starting with allies expectations in the first Gulf War, and increasing doubts over whether Germany could remain a credible partner in the transatlantic alliance without military participation. On a normative level, the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the Balkans raised the question of whether pacifism was the only, and the most appropriate, historical lesson to draw from the experience of World War II (Janning, 1996). The conflict in Kosovo crystallised these conflicting pressures, and German reactions to the crisis marked a watershed in post-war German policy as Berlin for the first time since the end of World War II took part in offensive military operations against a sovereign state. In addition to a changing view on the use of military force, Germany also moved from its traditional post-world War II transatlanticist orientation to one that increasingly accommodated the emergence of CFSP/ESDP.9 9 It should be noted here that Germany s position vis-a-vis the two other member states is best characterized as fence-sitting: not as fiercely transatlanticist as the UK, but not as keen on European autonomy in security and defence matters as France, Germany has traditionally tried to balance the two positions (Interview with German official, 19 October 2005). 18

20 For France, the end of the Cold War and changed geopolitical realities raised the issue of the EU s role in European security and the preservation of France s status, particularly in light of a reunified Germany and resulting concerns over the geo-strategic marginalization of France. Bosnia demonstrated to France that its European partners not only lacked the political will but also the confidence for Europe to act alone in security matters (Treacher, 2001: 33). To avoid marginalization in Europe, France modified its vision of the European security architecture, particularly with regard to NATO. Although this did not mean the abandonment of the idea of building an autonomous European defence structure (see Howorth, 2000), it did signal a more pragmatic approach. At the Anglo-French summit at St. Malo in December 1998 Britain and France issued a Joint Declaration on European Defence that called for the establishment of autonomous capacities backed by credible military force. The German EU presidency in the first half of 1999 worked to turn the British-French bilateral initiative at St. Malo into a European reality and to create the EU ESDP. At the European Council of Cologne in 1999, Javier Solana was appointed as the first CFSP Secretary General/High Representative, and leaders agreed to limit the defence capacity of the EU to the Petersberg Tasks.10 The WEU as an organisation was considered to have completed its function, and its assets were transferred to the EU (Gnesotto, 2004). At the European Council of Helsinki December 1999, EU leaders agreed on the Headline Goal (60,000 troops by 2003, deployable within 60 days and sustainable for one year), to set up a new institutional structure, and to agree on the modalities for cooperation between the EU and NATO 10 The Petersberg Tasks include humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks, and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking 19

21 (Gnesotto, 2004).11 At the Laeken European Council December 2001, finally, EU leaders declared the EU capable of conducting some crisis management operations. Decision-making in the EU CFSP and ESDP proceeds along intergovernmental lines. This makes the study of individual countries foreign policies rather than policy processes at the institutional level a pertinent approach for addressing the research question formulated in the preceding section. The selection of Britain, France and Germany as country case studies is motivated by a number of considerations in addition to the three countries changing positions vis-a-vis the EU ESDP. Given the evolution of the EU foreign and security policy instruments since the creation of CFSP and ESDP, and the increasing demands placed on the EU and its member states in matters of external relations and international security, the big three member states occupy a central position in the formulation and the putting into practice of EU foreign and security policy. Britain and France enjoy a foreign policy lead based on the size of their military contributions and engagements world wide. Together with Germany, although it is not on par with Britain and France in the military arena, the three are indispensable in diplomatic terms (Everts, 2000:19). The three countries also contributed significantly in military and diplomatic terms in FYROM and Afghanistan. Lastly, the substantial change in all three countries national positions vis-a-vis the development of CFSP and ESDP but the conflicting positions when it came to questions of these instruments application in the two crises makes the analysis of the foreign policies of the three countries highly topical. The two crises analyzed in this thesis highlight differences among the three member states 11 It is important to note that agreeing on the modalities of EU-NATO cooperation in the final stages in the preparation for the use of military instruments located in the EU ESDP did no longer hinge on member states different conceptions on the role of NATO or the EU, but on differences between Greece and Turkey on the use of NATO assets on the part of the EU that precluded the finalization of the so-called Berlin Plus agreements that give the EU access to NATO assets. 20

22 with respect to the EU s global and regional role and different national positions over where the instruments located in the EU CFSP/ESDP should be applied. The selection of the two crisis case studies is motivated by the following reasons: first, they were the first two crises prompting significant involvement on the part of EU member states to occur after the further development of CFSP after the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 and the creation of ESDP in They were also the first two crises to occur after the Kosovo conflict, which was widely cited as a catalyst for Europe (Pond, 1999). After the traumatic events in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s and the failure on the part of the EU to act, there was an expectation that the EU would play a stronger role in future crises. The cases of FYROM and Afghanistan thus constitute test cases in the sense that they show to what extent EU member states involved the EU CFSP and ESDP in crisis responses, and to what extent they sought to provide European responses (rather than national or NATO responses) to these two crises. Second, although both crises occurred during roughly the same time period they seemed to elicit a very different policy response in terms of the involvement of the EU CFSP and ESDP on the part of EU member states. This makes the two cases an interesting contrast, and highlights the regional as well as the global dimension in which foreign policy decisions of the three EU member states take place. Lastly, the two crises also occurred during the late stage of the institutional set-up of CFSP and ESDP. This makes policy reactions to the crises with respect to the involvement of EU policy instruments relevant for drawing broader conclusions about the place occupied by these institutions in national foreign policy and the constraints that act on their use. This thesis uses the comparative method of structured, focused comparison (George, 1979) to study the impact of CFSP in Britain, France and Germany. It 21

23 addresses the many variables, small n problem by focusing the analysis on comparable cases that are similar in a number of important characteristics, but dissimilar as far as the explanatory variables are concerned, and by focusing on key variables (Lijphart, 1971). Britain, France and Germany, while similar with respect to their size and expected contribution to and expected lead in the formulation of decisions taken under CFSP/ESDP, are dissimilar in their historic military and strategic role, their attitude towards the use of force, and their policies towards the creation and the use of the EU CFSP and ESDP instruments. Whereas Germany since the end of World War II has conducted its foreign policy through multilateral channels and conceives of itself as a civilian power (Maull, 2000), British and French foreign policies in contrast have been characterized by a strong transatlantic relationship and emphasis on national sovereignty in the case of Britain, and a by a desire to maintain the status of a world power, and French exceptionalism, in the case of France (Howorth, 2004). Due to their size and influence in the European setting, the three countries also represent hard cases, as preferences that point towards Europeanization observed in these countries will be more relevant for the future development of CFSP and ESDP than in countries less influential in the integration process. The comparison of the three countries stands to provide an assessment of the influence of the EU level on national decision making and to what extent it has changed policy preferences in favour of a larger role for the EU in foreign and security policy. If such influences can be shown in all three countries this would support a conclusion that integration process are at work that lead towards convergence of preferences, and to an increasing role and application of EU CFSP/ESDP instruments in future crises. The thesis will analyze and compare policy responses by the three individual countries along three separate aspects that required 22

24 policy responses and a choice between the EU and other institutional settings in each crisis. These aspects will be identified in chapter 3. This thesis is based on five kinds of sources: 1) academic literature on the conceptual approaches to the study of EU foreigil policy, the foreign policies of EU member states, and EU-NATO relations; 2) think tank publications; 3) newspaper articles; 4) official documents; and 5) interviews carried out at the Foreign Offices and the Ministries of Defence in the capitals, the Permanent Representations of the EU member states in Brussels, think tanks and the EU institutions. Interviews in particular are important for a number of reasons. First, the official documents are insufficient as far as they show the result of policy decisionmaking but do not reveal policy negotiations or disagreements among the member states (as well as their solution). Foreign and security policy is also a special realm as diplomatic activities take place behind the scenes and away from the public realm. Interviews also provide the researcher with a clearer picture of the policy-making process, in particular if conducted with eyewitnesses - officials who were directly involved in the political decisions taken at the time. At the same time, data/evidence derived from interviews is insufficient as interviewees may be biased, or not fully understand or remember a process. It is therefore necessary to supplement the data gathered from the interviews with official documents as well as the available secondary literature. Data derived from these five sources is then used to test the hypotheses formulated in section VI through the method of process-tracing. Process-tracing makes possible to trace the links between possible causes and observed outcomes resulting in an analytical explanation. That is, it transforms a historical narrative into an analytical causal explanation (George and Bennett, 2005: 211). 23

25 V. Hypotheses generated from the conceptual approaches; some definitions Having briefly introduced the conceptual approaches that will be used to analyze national policy decisions with respect to the two crises, and having provided the historical context on the creation of the EU CFSP/ESDP, this section formulates hypotheses generated from the two conceptual approaches. These hypotheses will then be tested in the individual country chapters. To recall, the specific question this research addresses is: what was the role afforded to the EU CFSP (including ESDP), in the management of the crisis in FYROM and the war in Afghanistan in national foreign policy decision-making in Britain, France and Germany, and why did it stop short of an EU military operation under ESDP- initially in the case of FYROM and altogether in the case of Afghanistan? The dependent variable in this research is the national foreign policy decision with regard to the use of EU CFSP and ESDP instruments in the crisis in question. Two competing independent variables -considerations derived from Europeanization and alliance politics - have been suggested as likely relevant explanations that emerge from the analysis of domestic policy processes. These will be applied to the empirical evidence presented in later chapters in order to ascertain their explanatory power in the decisions in the two crises. An inquiry into the nature of the role afforded to the EU CFSP in national foreign policy decision-making also necessitates a closer definition of the meaning of the term. For the purposes of this research, role will be taken to mean the nature of the task assigned to the EU CFSP/ESDP, including the nature of the mandate for either HR/SG Javier Solana or a EU Special Representative (EUSR) appointed to deal with a specific issue area; and the application of ESDP instruments. 24

26 A significant role for the EU CFSP/ESDP can be expected to entail a mandate for a representative of the EU CFSP to negotiate on behalf of EU member states in a given crisis; the deployment of military instruments located in the EU ESDP; the adoption of joint actions and common position as well as joint policies in response to a crisis in addition to a high profile for the EU CFSP/ESDP in national foreign policy discourse. This could mean, for instance, that EU political and military tools are suggested and supported as the most appropriate instruments for dealing with the crisis in question. In contrast, a small role for the EU CFSP/ESDP can be expected to include the adoption of joint actions and common positions but without the corresponding high profile in national foreign policy discourse; no exclusive mandate for a representative of the EU CFSP to negotiate on behalf of EU member states in a given crisis; and the refusal to seriously consider the use of all instruments located within the EU CFSP/ESDP, or to block or delay decisions. Lastly, no role for the EU CFSP/ESDP would mean that the application of instruments located in the EU CFSP/ESDP, although it may be discussed, does not lead to the adoption of policies that involve EU CFSP/ESDP instruments. A second definitional matter concerns the distinction between a significant 10 and small influence of either EU security institutions or the transatlantic alliance on national foreign policy decisions. Following from the definition of Europeanization adopted in the thesis (see Wong, 2005), significant influence of EU security institutions is conceptualized here as either adaptational pressures acting on policy makers to utilize EU institutions; as the potential for policy projection and the export of national preferences on to the European level; or a reflexive preference for 12 In the case o f the transatlantic alliance, this applies both to preferences of the US and national policy preferences. 25

27 the utilization of policy instruments located within the EU CFSP and ESDP. These can arise from the nature and location of the conflict as well as the EU s past involvement in a geographic area; the existence of EU political and military instruments that have yet to be put to use; the desire to maximize national influence on a given policy area by means of the EU; or an inherently strong European orientation in national foreign policy. Small influence by contrast can be expected to manifest itself as the opposite: weak or nonexistent adaptational pressures; no potential or perceived advantage to export national preference on to the European level; and the absence of preferences for the utilization of policy instruments located within the EU CFSP and ESDP. Significant influence of considerations of alliance politics on national policy decisions, by contrast, is taken to mean that US involvement is deemed crucial by policy makers; that the US objects to the application of instruments other than those located in NATO; or that policy makers regard NATO as the most appropriate forum for the resolution of the crisis, either out of a transatlantic preference or because the necessary military tools are located in NATO. A weak influence of alliance politics considerations, on the other hand, is defined to mean the absence of US objections or that policy makers do not view NATO as the only or most appropriate forum for the resolution of the crisis. Having defined the terms, as well as the dependent and independent variables in this research endeavor, it is now possible to formulate a number of hypotheses that will be tested in the empirical chapters. The governmental politics approach is concerned with analyzing the decision-making process in a particular instance rather than with the formulation of a grand theory. Two competing assumptions can 26

28 nevertheless be derived from this approach that tie together the analysis of Europeanization versus alliance politics: (1) if key government officials, bureaucrats and/or the elite public sphere favor the utilization of EU CFPS/ESDP over other institutional venues, and if they succeed in implementing their preferences, this results in a significant role for the EU CFSP/ESDP and points towards evidence of Europeanization; whereas (2) if the reverse is true - that key officials either do not favour the utilization of the EU CFSP/ESDP, or favour the utilization but do not succeed in implementing their preferences, then this results in a small role for the EU CFSP and ESDP and disproves the Europeanization hypotheses that are formulated below. The Europeanization thesis generates the following hypotheses: (1) if there is a significant influence of EU security institutions on national foreign policy, then one would expect to find national governments to advocate a significant role for the EU CFSP and ESDP in both crises. (2) if there is little evidence of an influence of EU security institutions on national foreign policy, then one would expect to find a small role afforded to the EU CFSP/ESDP in both cases. (3) if there is significant influence of EU security institutions but this influence is weighed against other factors, then one would expect to find a role afforded to the EU 27

29 CFSP/ESDP in specific cases only, or only a partial role afforded to policy instruments located in CFSP/ESDP. According to the alliance politics approach, one can formulate these hypotheses: (1) if there is significant influence of the transatlantic alliance, both in terms of US preferences against an EU role, or other pressures to keep NATO in play and adjust policy preferences accordingly, then one would expect to find a small role afforded to the EU CFSP/ESDP (2) if there is little influence of the transatlantic alliance on member states, or if there is little interest of (or perceived threat towards) the alliance in a particular region or conflict, then one would expect to find a significant role afforded to the EU CFSP/ESDP. Lastly, with regard to military operations in particular there is also a utilitarian argument to be derived from alliance politics that focuses on the availability of military assets: (3) if NATO assets are required for carrying out an operation that are not available to the EU, then one can expect to find a small role afforded to the EU CFSP/ESDP. VI. Thesis Outline The remainder of this thesis is structured as follows: 28

30 Chapter 2 introduces the conceptual framework, the competing theoretical approaches that generate the working hypotheses presented in this chapter, and develops specific indicators by which to judge the empirical data. Chapter 3 analyses the two crisis case studies, highlights the relevant decisions with respect to the involvement of the EU, NATO and the US in the two crises, and identifies aspects of the political response to the two crises that crystallize decisions taken with respect to the research question posed in this introductory chapter. Chapters 4 and 5 consist of the empirical study of German policy towards the two crises. Chapters 6 and 7 apply the same structure to French policy towards the two crises, and chapters 8 and 9 do the same for the British case. Chapter 10 summarises the empirical findings and draws conclusions from the evidence established in Chapters 4 through 9. It will do so particularly with a view to the explanatory power of the Europeanization hypotheses in the two cases. 29

31 Chapter 2. Conceptual framework. I. Introduction This chapter presents in more detail the three conceptual approaches - Europeanization, alliance politics, and governmental politics- and their application in this thesis to explain national policy decisions in the two crises. It also situates them in the broader literature of International Relations (IR) and European integration. Finally, it presents the indicators that will be applied in the empirical chapters that follow to test the hypotheses formulated in chapter 1. By focussing on the application of CFSP/ESDP policy instruments in specific crisis situations, this thesis addresses the conceptual question of the nature of the interaction between the national and the European level. It takes the nation-state as the unit of analysis and assumes that member-states are the main actors in the EU CFSP/ESDP as far as decisions to employ political and military instruments located in CFSP/ESDP are concerned. It also assumes that existing EU institutions and the transatlantic alliance, and the preferences that national decision-makers hold vis-a-vis one or the other, influences the outcomes of national decision-making. This chapter is structured as follows: the first section introduces the problem of applying IR theory to the EU s external relations with a view to placing the conceptual approaches applied in this thesis in a broader theoretical framework. The second section introduces the individual conceptual approaches that are applied to the empirical material in the individual country chapters. Section three outlines the potential contributions of a traditional FPA approach to the analysis of decision-making in the two crises. Section four critically assesses the Europeanization approach and its applicability to the research question this thesis sets out to answer. Although EU foreign policy challenges traditional IR approaches, the enduring choice between NATO and ESDP/CFSP in 30

32 the formulation of foreign policy in crisis decisions suggests that alliance politics and the role of US hegemony continues to play a significant role in national decisionmaking. The conceptual framework -alliance politics- resulting from these assumptions arises from traditional IR approaches of balancing, band wagoning, and cooperation under anarchy. The fifth section will therefore analyze this literature and develop indicators that help test the empirical data in a more traditional IR framework. Based on the indicators developed in the two sections, the final section will restate the hypotheses introduced in chapter 1, and present possible outcomes. II. International Relations Theory and EU Foreign and Security Policy Although the EU CFSP since its inception has been criticized for its incoherence and ineffectiveness (Stavridis, 1997; Zielonka, 1998), EU member states have made continuous efforts to create effective institutional structures and to formulate common policies. This challenges realist assumptions about the limits of cooperation. A European foreign policy not only exists but is a dynamic and ongoing process in 11 which EU member states play a defining role. What is more, the creation of CFSP and ESDP has also raised expectations of further foreign policy activities on the part of the EU, and the increasing application of these instruments provide evidence that the Capabilities-Expectations Gap (CEG), identified some years ago by Christopher 13 The term European foreign policy is somewhat contested on account of the fact that the EU is not a state and does not implement policies the way states do. As for the nature of the EU as an international actor, it has been argued that the concept o f presence permits explanations ofthe international impact o f the EU without having to define the international activity o f an actor that is not a state (Allen and Smith, 1990) and gives weight to outside perceptions o f the EU and its effects on the psychological and operational environments of third parties (Hill, 1993). Conceiving o f European foreign policy as an external relations system that reflects parallel sets of activity, increasingly intermeshed and easy to confuse (...) but still essentially distinct (Hill, 1993: 322) offers a more neutral conception that stays clear o f debates over whether the EU can have a foreign policy or be regarded as an actor in foreign policy (Ginsberg, 1999). However, in the definition of foreign policy as the sum o f official external relations conducted by an independent actor in international relations (Hill, 2003:3), the EU as an independent actor does qualify as has having a foreign policy. As for the specific types of European foreign policy, one can identify the following (White, 1999): Community foreign policy, Union foreign policy, and national foreign policy. In the context of this typology, this thesis focuses on national foreign policy and analyses the ways in which national and Union foreign policies interact. 31

33 Hill, is diminishing (Hill, 1993 and 1998). This makes the impact and the interaction between the national and the European level a fruitful line of inquiry. It also raises the question of the theoretical approach best suited for explaining the nature of these interactions. For mainstream IR theory, the creation of CFSP/ESDP presents a challenge as it puts into question the notion of state sovereignty - the European Union is neither a state, nor a traditional alliance, and (...) presents a heterodox unit of analysis (Andreatta, 2005:19); and is unique in the nature of its international cooperation and integration (Wallace, 1994), even if the area of foreign and security policy is intergovernmental and likely to remain so. Theories and concepts found in the literature on European integration generally have not been applied to foreign and security policy,14 but have instead concerned themselves with the problem of economic and political integration. Theories of regional integration, particularly functionalism (Mitrany, 1966) and later neo-functionalism (Haas, 1964) were more specifically concerned with processes of European integration and, in their supranational focus, form the antidote to liberal intergovemmentalism within the liberal paradigm. Neofunctionalism in particular conceptualizes the process of integration as proceeding via functional spillover between issue-areas or political spillover involving the supranational actor (Caporaso, 2001). Neofunctionalism assumes that integration brings loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states. The end result of a process of political integration is a new political community, superimposed over pre-existing ones (Haas, 1958: 16). In this reading, the pursuit of common interests is ultimately assigned to a supranational authority 14 One exception is the concept o f security communities that was first explored by Karl Deutsch (1957) and systematically studied in an edited volume by Adler and Barnett (1998). 32

34 that over time extends its policy reach. As a theoretical explanation, however, functionalism is better suited to explain economic integration: political spillover in particular does not serve as a potent explanatory tool as EU institutions have played a much more limited role in EPC/CFSP than in other policy areas (Smith, 2004). The two main theories of international relations, realism and liberalism both show weaknesses with respect to their explanatory power of European integration and European foreign policy, including the EU CFSP/ESDP. Given its emphasis on the constraints of anarchy, realist approaches are sceptical about the possibility of international cooperation or European integration, and generally more useful to explain why co-operation fails rather than why it succeeds or how it functions. Accordingly, the interests displayed by the European countries in the EU creates a problem for realist theory (Grieco, 1997: 184). Filipo Andreatta (2005:25) also emphasizes that although Waltz, a key proponent of neo-realism, takes note of integration taking place, he nevertheless argues that this would merely alter the distribution of power among the different units, but not the basic characteristics ofthe international system and the constraints on the individual units within it. Other realist thinkers allow for cooperation -and, by extension, European integration- as either a result of US hegemony (Gilpin, 1981) or the bipolar structure (Gowa, 1989) in its ability to provide order; or conceptualise European integration as a means to constrain Germany, particularly after unification (Art, 1996). Neither of these thinkers, however, allow for the possibility of changing preferences or policy impact on national foreign policy as result of European integration. Theoretical approaches based on the liberal paradigm are better suited to explain European integration and the emergence of the EU CFSP because they do allow for the emergence of supranational organizations. Interdependence theories, 33

35 most closely associated with theories of international political economy but equally applicable to other areas of international politics, focus on mutual sensitivity and vulnerability that in turn leads to increased cooperation as autonomy becomes harder to sustain and states recognize the potential for joint gains (Keohane and Nye, 1977). Regime theory, as developed by liberal institutionalism, focuses on potentials for cooperation between states (see Krasner, 1983). Neoliberal institutionalism in particular allows for the emergence of international institutions in order to reducing uncertainty and mistrust in interstate relations (Keohane, 1984; Axelrod and Keohane, 1985). Applied to the EU CFSP, European institutions can serve the purpose of ameliorating collective action problems that emerge from cooperation in the military field (Tams, 1999). In contrast, liberal intergovemmentalism emphasises domestic structures and holds that states remain the basic unit in world politics and privileges the role of national governments in defining their interests. Andrew Moravcsik, a prominent proponent of liberal intergovemmentalism, thus argues that the primary source of (European) integration lies in the interests of the states themselves and the relative power they each bring to Brussels (Moravcsik, 1998: 75). Accordingly, governments negotiate those issues at the supranational level that favour their domestic constituencies. Integration only happens when governments judge it in their interest to resort to supranational strategies. The pooling of sovereignty serves to enhance the credibility of member states commitments (Moravcsik, 1998); and the process of EU foreign policy making in EU CFSP can be expected to remain intergovernmental (Wagner, 2003). However, the limitations of the liberal approach is that it is too narrow to account for the development of EU foreign policy as EU foreign policy has not always enjoyed a convergence of view on the goals o f the institution, and as it is difficult to conceive of EU foreign policy as a 34

36 distinct issue-area in international relations (Smith, 2004). And, liberal intergovemmentalism assumes that the demands of society will always be clear when, particularly in the case of foreign policy, they may either not exist or may not be heard by policy makers. Whereas realism and liberalism assume the rationality of actors, reflectivist approaches question the assumption of objectivity in social science (Hollis and Smith, 1991). Social constructivism in particular views interests and identities as endogenous to social interaction and conceptualizes agents and structures as mutually constitutive (Wendt, 1992). Reflectivist approaches to the study of international relations are potentially fruitful approaches to the study of EU foreign policy because they focus on issues related to governance, norms and identity that are largely outside the grasp of a more traditional, positivist rationalist research tradition. The EU, not as a supranational organ but as socially constituted by the states and in the states as a converging national policies and identities, increasingly takes on its own political logic. In a reflectivist reading, the construction of an identity (particularly in the post-cold War era) requires the presence of an Other to define oneself (Neumann, 1998). In the case of Europe, a constructivist reading of European identity has argued that Europe is not primarily built as a political category through the nationstate imitating rhetoric of cultural identity and shared ancestry, but rather through a peculiar security argument: Europe s past of wars and divisions is held up as the other to be negated, and on this basis it is argued that Europe can only be if we avoid renewed fragmentation (Waever, 1996). Reflectivist approaches thus focus on the normative and ideational aspects and motivations not only of the EU s international actions but also the EU itself toward democracy, peace and the rule of law, for instance (Manners, 2002). 35

37 Exclusive emphasis on CFSP s intergovernmental character, understood as intergovernmental cooperation, also neglects processes of socialization and institutional dynamics. Possible starting points for a communitarian conception of CFSP include focusing on informal rules of the game that constrain actor behaviour, socialisation processes and organisational dynamics (Jorgensen, 1997). Evidence of such socialisation or processes of change at the national level across a range of states and issues includes the internationalisation of norms and expectations (Tonra, 2001), or the development of a consultation reflex (Nuttall, 1992), or policy networks and epistemic communities influence decision-making in an institutional context (Flaas, 1960). Tonra (2003) suggests that a cognitive approach that focuses on rules that build on the conception of CFSP as a cognitive regime, resting on shared understandings of acceptable norms of behaviour (Kratochwil and Ruggie, 1986) can offer insights into the reciprocal relationship between CFSP and national foreign policies and the transforming capacity of the CFSP vis-a-vis national foreign policies beyond those offered by a rationalist approach. This includes role perceptions, a set of norms of foreign policy behaviour and action orientation that serves as a 'road map that foreign policy-makers rely on to simplify and facilitate an understanding of a complex political reality (Goldstein and Keohane, 1993). In the context of Europe, Aggestam (1999) distinguishes between several and sometimes overlapping role conceptions, each of which carries its own normative implication as to an actors likely policy behaviour. This albeit brief overview of existing approaches to analyzing the EU s foreign policy has demonstrated that existing theories of both IR and European integration are ill-equipped to explain either the emergence of the EU CFSP/ESDP, the process under which policies are adopted, or the nature of the impact and 36

38 influence of the European on the national level and vice versa. It has also shown that research on the interaction between the EU CFSP and national foreign policies has yielded some results that point towards change in national foreign policy practice (Nuttall, 1992) as well as policy outcomes (Tonra, 2003). This justifies the use ofthe Europeanization concept to analyze the question posed in this thesis: based on the brief overview of the existing literature and its limitation, the EU CFSP can be expected to have some influence on the formulation of national foreign policy. Still, the question remains whether changing practices result in a change of preferences, and in national governments advocating a qualitatively different role for the EU CFSP/ESDP as a result. The Europeanization concept is a promising one because it allows a detailed study of the nature of the interaction between the national and the European level. Before analyzing the Europeanization approach in more detail, however, the next section introduces the governmental politics model. The analysis of national policy decision-making based on this model will be used in this thesis as a framework that allows drawing conclusions on the degree of Europeanization and/or alliance politics, as well as the explanatory value of the two approaches, in national foreign policy towards the two crises. III. Governmental Politics The governmental politics model, which is to provide a basis from which to draw conclusions as to the validity of the alliance politics and Europeanization frameworks, is located in the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) paradigm. It differs from the two conceptual lenses applied in this thesis in that it does not offer a theorydriven explanation in the sense that it does not aim to derive an explanation for a policy decision from a general theory of IR. FPA in general aims at formulating 37

39 middle-range theories, which offer explanations of particular, limited phenomena rather than more general explanations of state behaviour (Merton, 1957). The advantages of an FPA approach for this project are that it enquires into the motives and other sources of the behaviour of international actors, particularly states... by giving a good deal of attention to decision-making, initially so as to probe behind the formal self-description (and fictions) of the processes government and public administration (Hill, 2003:10). The particular approach adopted in this project is closely modelled on Allison s bureaucratic politics model (Allison, 1999), which seeks to open the black box of policy-making in order to identify the chain of decision-making and the different players involved policy decisions about the two crises under investigation in this thesis. It stands to offer a detailed explanation of the decision-making process, and will make it possible to draw conclusions over whether considerations that would point towards Europeanization or alliance politics drove policy decisions in the three countries in the two crises. Before outlining the governmental politics framework as it will be applied in this thesis as well as its applicability to this particular research project, the following section briefly addresses the problem of applying a FPA framework in a European context. a. Applying FPA to the European context Although a potentially fruitful line of inquiry, FPA approaches have been criticized for their state-centric outlook and the exclusive focus on US foreign policy (Smith, 1994; Brown, 2001). More generally, and partly as a result of these criticisms, the FPA approach itself has suffered from neglect as a separate field of investigation even if it has generated a large body of scholarship (Light, 1994). However, the criticism of state-centrism can be effectively countered by the argument that FPA 38

40 itself grew out of reactions to realist assumptions of the state as a unitary actor, and is fundamentally pluralist in orientation (Hill, 2003). As outlined in preceding sections, the study of European foreign policy in general and CFSP/ESDP in particular sits somewhat uneasily within IR theory due to the specific nature of the EU and its foreign policy. Traditional IR theories assume that systemic conditions determine state behaviour and/or that states are rational, unitary actors. In holding on to assumptions of the state as a unitary actor, these theories have resulted in a simplified view on the policy process in general, and in the European context in particular. An analytical focus on the state itself, and policy processes that take place at the domestic level promises a more nuanced analysis of policy decisions and outcomes than structuralist theories can provide. It is also a promising approach in the context of foreign policy making in the CFPS/ESDP context. There is a gap in the scholarship on the EU s impact on member states foreign policies, which also points towards the applicability of FPA in a European context. Accordingly, it has been argued that the existing foreign policy literature has under-explored the distinctiveness of the foreign policies of European states who are members ofthe EU and the issues that this membership raises (Manners and Whitman, 2000:3). Much of the literature on European foreign policy and, by extension, CFSP is implicitly occupied with the study of policy-making with attention to the relationship between the decision-making process and policy outcome-in other words, foreign policy analysis (Peterson, 1998). FPA can be regarded as the most prominent approach when it comes to probing the processes of decision-making in European foreign policy. FPA perspectives, adapted to the European context, offer a useful framework for the study of European foreign policy, even if the sui generis nature of the EU context means that traditional FPA categories should not just simply be 39

41 transported to a European context (White, 1999), This in turn points towards the degree of modification necessary for FPA approaches to accommodate European foreign policy. Although traditional FPA approaches and the majority of the literature on the subject have focussed predominately on US political processes, they can be adapted to fit the European context. Accordingly, Christopher Hill and Michael Smith suggest that bureaucratic politics within the Commission and the Council Secretariat, distinctive domestic constituencies for leaders to defer to, and serious problems of coherence and legitimacy all demand the attention of the middle-range theories generated within FPA (2005: 393). Although the subject of this thesis is member states foreign policies as they related to the formulation of policies in the second intergovernmental pillar, some amendments to an FPA framework are nevertheless required in order to analyze the interplay between national foreign policy and Union foreign policy. The following section will analyze the application of a specific FPA approach, that of governmental politics, to the European setting as well as the necessary amendments in order to make the approach applicable to this particular research project. b. Governmental politics in the EU CFSP/ESDP framework The framework and application of governmental politics15 was conceptualized by Graham Allison in Essence o f Decision, his influential study of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and focuses on the competing preferences and processes for aggregating among them (Allison, 1999:11). Originally published in 1971, Allison s study built on the work of first generation foreign policy analysts who focussed on the political 15 Allison originally called the model bureaucratic politics but changed the name in the 2nd edition of his study, which this thesis adopts. 40

42 process approach to foreign policy (Huntington, 1960, Neustadt, 1960; Schilling et ah, 1962). The governmental politics model conceives of government behaviour and policy outputs as the results of bargaining games among decision-makers and departs from assumptions of states as unitary actors and of government actions as partially coordinated by leaders. The players in this model include in the first instance political leaders as well as officials occupying positions on top of major bureaucracies. In addition, other actors might play a role, including lower level officials, the press, NGOs, and the public. The model assumes that policy-makers positions derive from the department or agency they represent; that their preferences and beliefs are related to the different organizations they represent; and that their analysis accordingly yields conflicting recommendations (Allison, 1999:256). Another basic and crucial assumption underlying this approach is that power is shared, and that the foreign policy process is inherently a political one. As a result, policy outcomes are not guided by a rational course of action, but according to the power and performance of proponents and opponents of the action in question. Allison suggests that the organizing concepts of the governmental politics model can be arranged along four interrelated factors: who plays; the factors that shape players perceptions, preferences, and stance on a particular issue; determinants of a player s impact on results; and the combination of players stands, influence and moves to yield governmental decisions and actions (Allison, 1999: 390). While there has been a continuing interest in the influence of governmental politics that has gone hand in hand with increased attention to the impact of domestic politics on foreign policy more generally (Light, 1994), the governmental politics model has also met with significant criticism. Governmental politics has been criticized for underestimating the power of the executive in the context of US politics 41

43 (Art, 1973; Rosati, 1981); the failure to specify assumption and formulate testable hypotheses (Art, 1973; Wagner, 1974); for being inapplicable to the non-us setting (Wagner, 1974; Caldwell, 1977); for assuming too close a fit between roles and positions and for ignoring the images and beliefs that are shared cross role positions (Art, 1973; Krasner, 1971; Steiner, 1997; Welch, 1992); and for being ineffective as a model because it requires researchers to analyze too much detailed information about a foreign policy decision in order to draw conclusions - and therefore does not simplify the task of analysis (Ripley, 1995). Allison himself conceded that while his model stands to yield a detailed and nuanced picture of decision-making, the amoimt of detail the data collection and analysis required to carry out a study on government decisions means that accurate accounts of the bargaining processes involved pose a challenge for the researcher (Allison, 1999). Much of the necessary information must be obtained from the participants themselves. This in turn can pose a problem as memories of past events are not only unreliable, but access to the players in question may not always be possible. The model also presupposes a level of knowledge and familiarity of governmental processes that is difficult to obtain for an outside observer who has not been able to immerse him- or herself in the government process, either as a practitioner or as a participant observer. On the other hand, it is precisely the distance to the policy process that enables abstraction. And, government processes and outcomes can be reconstructed not just through partial interviews, but also through the use of public documents, newspapers, and discussion with close observers of the relevant participants. As a result of these criticisms, but also of other trends in social science research, such as the apolitical bias in foreign policy scholarship and the focus on grand theory and its emphasis on parsimony and hypothesis testing, relatively little 42

44 theoretical progress has occurred since the mid-1970s (Kaarbo, 1998: 72). At the same time, the enduring finding of the model, that policy makers are influenced by ingrained bureaucratic habits even under extraordinary circumstances, continues to apply to present day conditions. As a result, despite the criticisms and despite the lack of theoretical development of this approach (Welch, 1992), the governmental politics model remains a useful analytical approach. It also continues to be applied in FPA scholarship, albeit with modifications. The governmental politics model has been adjusted in particular by combining it with new theoretical development in FPA that includes research on organizational culture and social cognition (Ripley, 1995). Ripley s amended approach thus focuses on the analysis of three related concepts: bureaucratic roles (how participants see themselves and others contributing to the decision process), procedural scripts (the structures, strategies, and premises that make pragmatic sense in a decision process), and cultural rationales (the attempt by participants to define appropriate behaviour and invoke symbols to help give meaning to their decisions) (Ripley, 1995:90). A second approach that argues in favour of the relaxation of assumptions in the original model focuses on the more general notion of political power as dispersed and of conflict as deriving from incentive structures (Kaarbo, 1998:91). It therefore advocates dropping overly strict assumptions and predictions in favour of using governmental politics to inform a research question -as is the case in this research- and of taking the concepts of power, conflict and institutional structures as a backdrop for the investigation of specific question in foreign policy. Taken together, the suggested modifications result in an explanatory approach or perspective rather than a strict model, and include the individual players views and beliefs on their role in the decision-making process, the appropriate behavioural structures, and their views on appropriate behaviour. 43

45 The criticism that the model is not applicable in a non-us setting is, I would argue, overstated as the model is not inherently US-centric but has been applied by Allison to a case in US foreign policy, and can thus be amended to explain non-us policy outcomes (Allison, 1999). It is possible to apply the governmental politics model in the European setting and to specify the key players and identify the relevant policy processes that lead to a policy decision. Policy-making in the area of the EU CFSP/ESDP is distinct because of the ongoing growth in this particular policy field. Beyond specific governmental processes and the beliefs and preferences with regard to the EU CFSP/ESDP that may span across bureaucracies, the model should therefore be mindful of the wider governmental process, such as the role of parliaments, political parties and the elite public sphere, defined as outputs from think tanks, and the press: in other words, the public debates that form and reflect participants preferences and opinions with respect to the applicability of instruments located in the EU CFSP/ESDP in the two crises. Applied to the European context, and to this particular research, the governmental politics approach yields the following guiding questions around which to structure the analysis: Organizing Concept Operationalization Who are the participants? Who were the individuals and departments within the relevant ministries (Foreign and Defence) involved in this issue area? 44

46 Who were the executive decision-makers involved in these crises? Who were the relevant actors in the wider governmental process (members of parliament, think tanks, press)? What shapes participants perceptions, preferences and stance? What, if any, were the priorities of the participants with regard to CFSP/ESDP, the transatlantic alliance and the role of the US in European security? What were the participants conception of how the national interest would be served by the application of CFSP/ESDP or NATO instruments (or lack thereof)? What determines their impact on results? What was the formal authority and responsibility of the participants in question? What was their degree of control over resources in order to carry out a mission? What was their access to players with bargaining advantages? What combination of stands, influence What was the decision structure? and moves result in decisions and 45

47 actions? What were the rules of the game, in terms of constitutional limitations, executive orders, or conventions? Structuring the empirical data around these questions will result in a thorough analysis of the governmental processes involved in the decision-making towards these two crises and identify the key decision-makers as well as their preferences in both cases. Having presented the first conceptual approach, the next section introduces the Europeanization model. IV. Europeanization The concept of Europeanization has been increasingly used to study aspects of European integration and to analyze the way in which Europe matters in a specific policy field (Borzel, 2003; Caporaso et al., 2001; Dyson and Goetz, 2003; Knill, 2001; Featherstone and Radaelli, 2003; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005). Europeanization has been conceptualized as an historic phenomenon, transnational cultural diffusion, institutional adaptation, or the adaptation of policies and policy processes - reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the use of the concept (Featherstone and Radaelli, 2003). The broad usage of the term thus poses a number of challenges for researchers wishing to employ the concept. First, Europeanization must be properly defined in order to delineate Europeanization from related processes and concepts, in particular that of European integration. This is also important with a view to establishing relevant indicators of Europeanization for the analysis of empirical data collected. More fundamentally, the concept s applicability in the area of foreign and security policy must also be established, as foreign and security policy 46

48 differs from other policy areas because of the intergovernmental nature of decisionmaking.16 In addition, decision-making in matters of foreign and security policy tends to be entrusted to the national executive with less domestic parliamentary oversight than in other policy areas. As a result, any influence of the EU on the formulation on national foreign policy is not immediately apparent. And, the intergovernmental nature of EU foreign and security policy that does not generate the type of legally binding adaptation pressures policy areas in the first pillar do. Apart from the problem of defining Europeanization, another frequently voiced concern regarding the utility of research on Europeanization is that it is an analytical concept rather than a theory. These are certainly valid reservations. However, it has been argued that Europeanization, rather than serving as an explanatory concept or theory, can be useful as an attention-directing device and a starting point for further exploration (Olsen, 2002: 943). Thus, the potential contribution of the application of the concept of Europeanization is that it helps the understanding and the analysis of the impact of the EU on the national level. It also helps focus on processes of change (Radaelli, 2004). Europeanization thus allows the researcher to focus on puzzles beyond the cause of European integration or the nature of EU decision-making, and to inquire into the nature of the reciprocal relationship between the European and the national level (Borzel, 2002: 195). For the purpose of addressing the research question posed in this thesis, therefore, the use of the Europeanization concept seems not only promising but also appropriate. 16 Decision-making in the first or 'Community' pillar policies is supranational, whereas the second CFSP pillar and the third Justice and Home Affairs pillar proceed by intergovernmental decisionmaking. 47

49 a. Applying Europeanization to foreign and security policy Due to the intergovernmental nature of the EU foreign policy process in the area of foreign policy, pressures emanating from the EU level are not as strong or direct than in areas of economic and social policy. There, research has established modifications occurring in national policies and institutional structures in policy areas located in the first pillar (Borzel, 1999; Bulmer and Burch, 1999; Cole and Drake, 2000). With regard to foreign policy, therefore, the delegation of policy competences in foreign affairs has been said to have had a limited impact on domestic policy choices (Hix and Goertz, 2000). On the other hand, EU membership has resulted in an adaptation process for new and for founding EU member states, both in terms of their policies towards previously external states as they join the EU, as well as policies towards third states in order to align it with existing EU policies (Manners and Whitman, 2000). Through the institutionalisation of EPC and later CFSP and ESDP, foreign policy and security policy have become part of the integration process, despite its intergovernmental decision-making, and co-operation within the EU CFSP has been 17 shown to reinforce shared norms of behaviour (Ginsberg, 2001). Although the effects of Europeanization on national foreign policy are weak in comparison with policy areas located in the first pillar, there do exist a number of documented changes in states foreign policy as a result of national and European interactions, even if those changes are not always explicitly referred to as Europeanization. Research has shown that repeated interactions and the quantity and quality of information available has changed working patterns among the diplomats of EU member states (Nuttall, 1992; Forster and Wallace, 2000), resulting in a coordination reflex going beyond calculated exchanges of information (Tonra, 17 See for instance Forster and Blair (2002) on the impact of European policy making on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in the UK. 48

50 2003) and pointing towards a socializing dimension of Europeanization where changing practices can be expected to change preferences and interests. With the evolution of EU foreign policy coordination, some scholars have used a Europeanization approach to document changes in national foreign policy: in his study of Irish foreign policy, Keatinge (1983) referred to the Europeanization of foreign policy to label the reorientation of Irish foreign policy as a result of EC entry, whereas Torreblanca some years later identified such a shift in the case of Spanish EU membership (2001). More recently, Tonra has analyzed the Europeanization in the cases of Holland, Denmark and Ireland (2001), Wong in the case of France (2006) and Miskimmon in the case of Germany (2004). In applying the concept to national decision-making under CFSP and ESDP, therefore, one can reasonably expect to find evidence of some degree of Europeanization even in the field of security and defence. This in turn makes the application of the concept valid for the purpose of the research question posed in chapter 1. But, the analytical challenge of delineating the EU effect from other influences - including domestic politics, other international security institutions and the United States - in addition to the risk of overestimating the effect of Europeanization (Major, 2005: 183) by focussing exclusively on the interplay between the national and European level warrants the inclusion of alliance politics approaches in this thesis. b. Defining Europeanization One commonly cited definition of Europeanization focuses on domestic change caused by European cooperation and defines Europeanization as an incremental process reorienting the direction and shape of policies to the degree that EC political and economic dynamics become part of the organizational logic of national politics 49

51 and policy m aking (Ladrech, 1994: 69). In addition to a process o f domestic change, however, analysts adopting a bottom-up perspective understand Europeanization as the emergence and development at the European level of distinctive structures of governance (Caporaso et al. 2001: 3). But, because member states initiate these EU policies that they later adapt to, the two dimensions of Europeanization are linked in practice, suggesting that Europeanization is a mutually constitutive process of change at the national and the European level (Radaelli, 2002; Borzel, 2003). In addition, socialization mechanisms and cognitive change also suggest a third dimension of Europeanization, where changes comes about through the transfer o f norms or ideas. Building on the broad definitions of Europeanization presented above, Wong (2005) subsequently suggests that three conceptions of Europeanization in particular can be useful in explaining possible changes taking place in foreign policy-making in EU member states: national adaptation (a top-down process), national projection (a bottom-up process), and identity reconstruction (changing interests and identities). The following graph illustrates the interaction between the national and the European level. EU level Projection Adaptation Identity reconstruction National National level 50

52 adaptation understands Europeanization as a reactive, top-down process that introduces change from the European level to the national level of policy decisionmaking. Europeanization as national adaptation can be defined as...the process of change at the domestic level (be it of policies, preferences or institutions) originated by the adaptation pressures generated by the European integration process; a process of change whose identity and character depend on the goodness of fit of domestic institutions and adaptation pressures (Torreblanca, 2001). This definition extends to institutional processes as well as informal structures. In the context of foreign and security policy, this understanding of Europeanization runs counter to liberal intergovemmentalist conceptions of CFSP/ESDP as a forum where states try to push through individual objectives, and outcomes are the lowest common denominators (Moravcsik, 1998). It conceptualises participation in CFSP as a reciprocal relationship. It is more congruent with domestic structure approaches found in international relations and comparative politics and fits into what has been termed the second image reversed (Gourevitch, 1978), or the international (in this case, European) sources of domestic change. Following Smith (2000), one can expect to observe changes in one or more of the following as a result of Europeanization as national adaptation: bureaucratic reorganisation, constitutional change, elite socialization and shifts in public opinion. In addition, adaptation can be expected to result in a more general change in policies, preferences, and institutions, increased salience of the European agenda, and adherence to common policy objectives, policies agreed to for the sake of EU unity (high price of defection) and the relaxation of traditional policy positions to accommodate progress of EU projects. In the context of decisions taken in crisis situation, or decisions that concern the application of a policy instrument located in 51

53 CFSP/ESDP in a specific instance, bureaucratic reorganisation and constitutional change are less likely to be observed as these constitute changes as a long-term response to events and the institutional evolution of CFSP/ESDP. One could expect to find, however, a high degree of salience of the European agenda, the adherence to common objectives, and the relaxation of national policy positions in order to accommodate the progress of EU policy and institutions. Salience can be understood as a general importance or prominence of the EU CFSP/ESDP in national foreign policy. European agenda here refers to the development of EU security institutions. In practice, this means that an increased importance of the EU CFSP/ESDP in the minds of decision-makers leads to advocating increased application of CFSP/ESDP instruments. Europeanization as national projection (a bottom-up process), on the other hand, can be regarded as a process of where states seek to export domestic policy models, ideas and details to the EU (Bulmer, 1998). The concept of politics of scale (Ginsberg, 1989), and the benefits of collective action in conducting foreign policy actions at lower costs and risks than member states acting alone applies here as well. States are not just passively reacting to changes at the institutional level but are the primary actors in the process of policy change, and pro-actively project preferences and policy ideas and initiatives to the European level. By Europeanizing previously national policies and generalizing them onto a larger stage, a dialectical relationship between the state and the EU level is created which in turn feeds back to the national level. The benefits of national projection are first, that the state increases its international influence; second, that it reduces the costs of pursuing a controversial policy against an extra-european power; and third, that a strong European presence in the world is potentially beneficial to all EU members as it increases individual states 52

54 international influence (Regelsberger, 1997). Policy outcomes of national projection could see states taking advantage of the EU to promote specific national interests, states attempt to increase national influence in the world by participating in or initiating EU policies, and states using EU as cover to influence foreign policies of other member states. In practice, these top-down and bottom-up processes are interlinked, rendering. Europeanization not just a result or a consequence of policy, but also an ongoing and mutually constitutive process as the responses of member states to the EU integration process feed back into EU institutions (Borzel, 2003, Radaelli, 2002). This creates a methodological problem as far as EU policies and institutions can be regarded both as modifying policy preferences at the national level while at the same time originating at the national level, and therefore can potentially serve as a dependent or an independent variable. Nevertheless, the empirical analysis of member states foreign policies presented in later chapters shows that it is possible to analytically distinguish between the impact of the institution on a member states policy as well as moves of policy projection, especially when analyzing a particular policy decision, as is the case in this research project. The third conception of Europeanization, that of changing policy preferences, moves the definition of Europeanization closer to notions of integration and suggests the possibility of eventual convergence of national foreign policy. It evokes the concept of security communities (Deutsch, 1957), and that of elite socialization previously referred to (Smith, 2000) as well as the broader literature on national identity. Such readings of European identity also focus on the redefinition and negotiation of identities within EU institutions as well as national citizenry, mirroring a neo-functionalist reading of a gradual transfer of identity and affiliation towards a 53

55 new supranational Europe (Haas, 1960), even if it should be quite obvious that Europe as an identity category is far from replacing national identity and that Europe does not enjoy the same level of legitimacy that the individual nation-states do. In the context of Europeanization, Europe as an identity category co-exists and can be incorporated in a given nation-state identity, depending on the degree of resonance. The question then becomes how much space there is for Europe in collective nation-sate identities and how these identity constructions o f Europe relate to given nation-state identities and ideas about the European political and economic order (Risse, 2001). Evidence of conceptions of identity towards Europeanization includes the emergence or existence of norms among policy-making elites, shared definitions of European and national interests, increase in public support for European political cooperation, shared or overlapping definitions of the state s and Europe s role in the world, and of Europe s security parameters. Identity construction also suggests convergence, and in the context of EU foreign policy and CFSP prolonged participation in the CFSP feeds back into EU member states and reorients their foreign policy cultures along similar lines (Smith, 2000: 614). However, Europeanization should not be regarded as synonymous with convergence or integration, even if it can lead to aspects of both. Adaptation pressures and simultaneous policy projection are both filtered through national preferences and strategic cultures. This means that it is equally likely that national foreign policy cultures, although changing as a result of CFSP, remain significantly distinct from one another. This can be expected to negatively impact the emergence of a truly common European interest, identity, or foreign policy - as research on the emergence of a European strategic culture has documented (Giegerich, 2006; Meyer, 2005). The conceptual questions aside, conceiving of Europeanization as identity 54

56 formation also points towards long-term processes of change that are not necessarily captured in single policy-decisions, as is the focus of this research. This does not mean, however, that norms and more generally the value attached to a European approach cannot impact on national decision-making. Potential indicators for Europeanization as a result of identity formation can be expected to include the recourse to the European option as an instinctive choice, and the value attached to a European approach in a particular policy decision - in other words, similar the indicators one would expect to observe as a result of Europeanization conceptualized as national adaptation. c. Operationalizing Europeanization Europeanization thus promises to be a useful analytical approach as it allows for a conceptualisation of the parallel processes of adaptation and national influence exerted on the institution, as well as the potential for long-term changes in policy preferences. In the context of this particular research project, the first two definitions - national adaptation and the projection of policy preferences on to the EU level - are most directly relevant for the purposes of this particular research. Following from the discussion on the various potential observations as a result of Europeanization, the following indicators, and questions that result from them, are suggested that allow for an operationalization of Europeanization in the two case studies: Indicator of Europeanization The salience of the EU CFSP/ESDP in national foreign policy (adaptation) Operationalization Was the EU CFPS/ESDP suggested as the appropriate institution? 55

57 Was the application of CFSP/ESDP instruments in the decision-making process considered important, or a priority, on the part of national governments? The adherence to EU policy objectives, especially over other considerations and preferences (adaptation) Did the member state compromise its national preferences in order to accommodate the use of CFSP/ESDP instruments? The use, or advocating the use of the EU CFSP/ESDP in an attempt to increase national influence (projection) Did the EU CFSP/ESDP represent a vehicle for the member state to increase their influence in this particular policy case? The use of the EU CFSP/ESDP to push through policies on either the domestic or international level (projection) Did the member state pursue national policy preferences through the EU CFSP/ESDP in this particular case? The existence of shared definitions of national and European preferences among policy makers (changing Did the member state equate national with European preferences in this particular case? preferences) 56

58 The existence of norms and preferences among elites that favours the application of EU instruments over other available Did policy elites, including the elite public sphere, favour the application of CFSP/ESDP instruments? possibilities (changing preferences) Increase in public support for the EU CFSP/ESDP (changing preferences) Was there public support for the use of CFSP/ESDP instruments? The relaxation of traditional policy positions to accommodate progress of EU Was the EU CFSP/ESDP suggested as the appropriate institution in this case projects preferences) (adaptation/changing despite previously held preferences to the contrary that would have suggested the adoption of a different course of action? If evidence for these indicators are found in the empirical evidence presented in later chapters, national foreign policy can be said to exhibit signs of Europeanization and, more generally, substantiates the claim of the impact of the regional level on national foreign policy. V. Alliance Politics The final conceptual approach applied in this thesis locates a potential explanation in the role of alliances in international politics, in this particular case NATO, and the way in which they influence national foreign policy. It locates the explanation primarily at the systemic rather than the regional level and assumes that states 57

59 interest in the preservation of the transatlantic alliance and the continued involvement of the US in European security conditions their policy responses. NATO s survival after the end of the Cold War and its evolving role since the 1990s suggest that the transatlantic alliance continues to play a role in national foreign policies, even if NATO s original purpose -the defence of Western Europe against a possible attack from the Soviet Union- has disappeared. This explanatory approach thus places weight on the preferences and role assigned to NATO, as opposed to the EU CFSP/ESDP. The following sections will first analyze the literature on theoretical approaches towards the existence and purpose of alliances; apply this theoretical framework to the context of the EU member states in the context of the post-cold War era, and discuss ways to assess the role of NATO and US preferences in national foreign policy in the two cases. a. Alliances in international politics Studies of the role of alliances in international politics are generally grounded in realist thinking. This approach assumes that states are unitary actors in world politics, and that states form alliances in order to protect themselves against threats in an anarchical system. Alliance formation is thus a product of systemic anarchy, inequality of strength, and conflicts and common interests among states (Snyder, 1977). The belief that states form alliances to prevent stronger powers from dominating them lies at the heart of balance of power theory, which holds that states join alliances to protect themselves from states or coalitions whose superior resources could pose a threat (Bull, 2002; Waltz, 1979; Morgenthau, 1948). The tendency to balance will increase if a powerful state is nearby, especially if it appears to have especially dangerous intentions, such as territorial ambitions or an expansionist 58

60 ideology (Walt, 1987). Shifts in the level of threat will alter the nature of existing alliances, and the alliances formed to protect against a state that is weakened are less necessary and more likely to resolve (Walt, 1997). The absence of an overarching threat makes the disappearance of an alliance likely: thus, the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a unipolar system prompted predictions that the US and Europe would drift apart and security competition would return if the US were to withdraw from Europe (Layne, 1993; Mearsheimer, 1990). b. NATO since the end o f the Cold War While the conceptual literature on the formation of alliances explains the origins and persistence of NATO throughout the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 posed a significant challenge not only to NATO, but also to theorists of alliances who were faced with having to explain NATO s persistence in view of the disappearance of the Soviet threat. For one, it was argued that traditional balance of power theory in itself does not predict the disappearances of alliances but rather their becoming less coherent and more fragile (Walt, 1999). Others attribute a certain type of stability to the current unipolar system that leaves the US so powerful that other states are unlikely to challenge it. As long as the US remains willing to remain actively involved (even if its vital interests are no longer at stake), NATO is likely to persist in the future (Wohlforth, 1999; Mastanduno, 1999). From an institutionalist perspective, on the other hand, institutions encourage cooperation through reducing transaction costs and facilitating compliance with existing agreements (Keohane, 1984), and are therefore likely to endure. NATO s highly institutionalized character and the transatlantic network of an elite community consisting of former NATO officials, defence intellectuals, military officers and researchers is more likely to keep 59

61 the institution alive, even more so since NATO s capabilities and assets have been demonstrated to be useful in the post-cold War world during the Gulf War and in the Balkans (Walt, 1999). But, this point of view is most applicable in cases where states have common interests - and when common interests decline and the number of potential points of conflicts is growing it can be expected that it is more likely that Europe and America drift apart, with negative implications for the future ofnato. The fact that NATO did survive the end of the Cold War reinforces the argument that approaches rooted in the rationalist tradition do not suffice in explaining the creation and participation in an alliance, as they cannot account for underlying themes of institutional identity, and the socialisation effect that participation in an institutions has for members of an alliance (Williams and Newman, 1996). Constructivist approaches that understand NATO as a security community (Deutsch, 1957) focus on norms and identity issues similar to those raised in the context of the creation and participation in the EU CFSP in section II. From a social constructivist perspective, NATO did not fragment because of the shared norms and identities of its members. NATO, therefore, represents an institutionalization of the transatlantic security community based on common values and a collective identity of liberal democracies (Risse-Kappen, 1996: 395). In addition to having persisted, however, NATO has also embarked on a process of enlargement - demonstrating that the end of the Cold War instead of terminating led to an extension of the concept of a democratic security community (Risse-Kappen, 1996; Schimmelfennig, 1998/99). Accordingly, NATO has since the end of the Cold War changed its identity from purely that of a military alliance, to that of an organization o f cooperative security: whereas NATO during and immediately after 60

62 the Cold War was tied to the maintenance of an overall strategic balance (Ciuta, 2002: 51), it has shifted towards cooperative security and regards as its fundamental security tasks the creation of partnerships, along with crisis management (NATO, 23/24 April 1999). Although NATO has undergone significant changes since the end of the Cold War both with regards to membership as well as the definition of its main tasks, it remains a significant fixture in national foreign policy. This is both for the continuing involvement of the US in European affairs as well as for its political purpose as a permanent forum for diplomatic exchanges between member states. Arguments exist for both sides: that NATO is kept together by a shared recognition that the solution of common problems are best found through cooperation (Keohane, 1984) or that the transatlantic relationship is one essentially dominated by the US. In this reading, the creation of ESDP itself can be regarded as a response to US hegemony: even if ESDP does not quite constitute a balancing project it is certainly an effort to develop an alternative security supplier (Posen 2004). Either position in this debate, however, assigns a significant role to the role ofnato and by implication the US, in national foreign policy. c. Operationalizing alliance politics Applied to this research, a framework informed by alliance politics yields the following indicators: Indicator of alliance politics States align with NATO or the US in order to keep the US involved in Operationalization Was US involvement deemed crucial in this particular case by the member states, 61

63 European security concerns and did this result in alliance behaviour? US preference leans towards the use of NATO Did the US prefer (or insist) on NATO involvement, and did this result in the decision on the part of member states to use NATO in this particular case? Preference is given to NATO as institutional forum, or to US policy preferences, out of a clear transatlantic preference Did the member state in question exhibit a preference towards NATO over other institutional settings? Did the member states regard NATO as the primary forum for the solution of the crisis? Did the member states regard the crisis as a platform for NATO to prove NATO s continued relevance in the post-cold War era? Did the member state regard the use of NATO as a means to express solidarity with another member of the alliance? Preference is given to NATO for utilitarian reasons: military instruments Were necessary military tools available only through NATO? 62

64 are in possession ofnato, NATO more capable/acceptable to do the job at hand Was NATO considered the more appropriate resource for reasons of prior involvement in the region or case? Was NATO the preferred option for the host country? If evidence of these indicators is found in the empirical data, national foreign policy can be said to be determined by alliance behaviour, and by a preference for NATO. More generally, it would substantiate claims that alliance politics play a decisive role in the formulation of national foreign policy when it comes to crisis decision-making. VT. Conclusion Based on the discussion of the three approaches it is now possible to restate the hypotheses formulated in the introductory chapter in more specific terms. Significant evidence of Europeanization - manifested either as policy responses as a result of adaptational pressures, or the export of national preferences on to the European agenda - can be expected to result in a significant role for the EU CFSP/ESDP in the resolution of both crises. However, evidence of Europeanization may not necessarily result in a significant role for the EU CFSP/ESDP if alliance politics, and the presence ofnato, play a bigger role in national decision-making. National member states may prefer the use of NATO either for utilitarian reasons, for reasons of solidarity with another member of the alliance, out of preference for the involvement of the US and NATO, or because of US pressures or concern over possible negative 63

65 consequences for transatlantic relations. In this case, one would not expect a significant role afforded for the EU CFSP/ESDP, even if some evidence of Europeanization is present in both cases. Focussing on governmental politics, lastly, will open the black box of policy making and reveal what impact the preferences and influence of the individual agencies, key participants, and the elite public sphere (consisting research institutes and think tanks, the press, and the elite public) had on policy outcomes. Governmental politics will disaggregate the broader concepts of Europeanization and alliance politics by identifying preferences and bargaining positions within the national governments. In applying these conceptual approaches to the individual country case studies, this thesis will be able to arrive at a nuanced analysis of policy decisions taken both from the domestic as well as the international level. First, however, it is necessary to provide a more detailed analysis of the two crisis case studies to highlight the empirical puzzle and the contradictions between Europeanization and alliance politics impulses among the member states. 64

66 Chapter 3. The crisis in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the war in Afghanistan I. Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to provide background information on the crisis in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the war in Afghanistan for the analysis of the policy decisions taken by Britain, France and Germany that will be presented in subsequent chapters. This chapter also highlights the differences as well as the similarities of the two cases and the policy responses to the two crises, and demonstrates that their juxtaposition makes for a valuable analytical exercise. The first case, FYROM, is a regional crisis that took place in a region where the EU, NATO and individual member states had been active in the decade leading to the crisis, and was resolved peacefully. It also illustrates the politics leading to the implementation of the Berlin Plus agreement and the first military ESDP operation undertaken. The war in Afghanistan, on the other hand, took place in response to a global and systemic shock after the attacks on 11 September 2001 and the invocation of the NATO treaty s article V. This case therefore highlights national policy initiatives in response to a fundamentally changed international environment. The nature of the application of military instruments in the two cases is also different. This applies to the nature of the peace-keeping operations required involving both low and high end Petersberg tasks and the combination of warfare and peace-keeping in the case of Afghanistan, and the goal of deterrence of violent acts in the case of FYROM. But, the cases also show remarkable similarities. This applies to the importance of the US as a political and military actor in both cases as well as stated ambitions for a greater political and military role for the EU CFSP/ESDP that were not equally shared among member states. And, it shows the aim to establish the EU 65

67 as a political actor, and the friction between transatlantic and European commitments among the member states in formulating their policy choices. Finally, this chapter identifies a number of conceptual issues raised by these cases with respect to the role of the EU CFSP/ESDP, NATO, and the influence of the US on EU foreign policy more generally; and identifies specific policy areas that highlight the Europeanization and alliance politics hypotheses. These are to provide structure to the analysis and to allow comparison of the individual policy decisions in the empirical country chapters that follow. II. FYROM a. The significance o f the crisis fo r EUforeign policy The crisis in FYROM, although smaller in scale than the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s nevertheless posed a significant threat to regional security because of the potential for a spill-over of the conflict into neighbouring Kosovo and the de-stabilization of the entire region. Another failure to act on the part of the EU would also have been quite damaging to EU credibility in the region and beyond, a threat that was taken very seriously by the EU and the individual member states (Interview with French official, 8 September 2005). The crisis in FYROM thus had a strong symbolic character for EU crisis management, and was a first in several respects: the first time the EU made use of crisis management tools located in CFSP and ESDP; the first time NATO and the EU worked together on a practical level; and the first time a military mission for the EU was suggested and eventually realised under the EU ESDP framework. Operation Concordia, the first ever ESDP military mission, put into practice the Berlin-plus agreements and was high on symbolism even if it was a relatively small mission (Interview with EU official, 21 66

68 June 2005). This particular case, therefore, appears to validate the Europeanization hypothesis as far as the policy decisions of the member states were concerned. However, the involvement of NATO in the conflict, differences among member states with respect to the application of instruments located in the EU CFSP/ESDP, the timing of an ESDP take-over from NATO, and US interests in the region suggest that alliance politics considerations played an important part in this case as well. The conflicts among member states interests and policy preferences therefore justify the selection of this particular case for analysis. b. Background. The crisis in FYROM FYROM holds an important position in the security in the Western Balkans due to its geographic location at the southern border of Kosovo and the eastern border of Albania, and because of persistent interethnic tensions and the resulting potential for escalating violence that could result in the destabilization of the entire region. One of the poorest republics of the former Yugoslavia, FYROM is a country over which Serbs, Greeks and Bulgarians have historically asserted and maintained cultural and geographic claims. As part of the Yugoslav Federation, FYROM worked to create its own cultural identity; at the same time, the concerns of the Albanian population were not high on the agenda.18 Albanian nationalism thus took root and began to grow predominantly in Kosovo, as well as in FYROM (Liotta, 2003). The presence of the UN, OSCE, NATO and ultimately the EU in FYROM dates back to 1992, shortly after the country declared its independence, although much of the international, particularly NATO, presence has not been put in place necessarily for the benefit of FYROM but as part of the effort to deter violence in Kosovo. Following the 18 In 2002, the population profile was Macedonian (64.2 %), Albanian (25.2 %), along with Turkish (3.8 %), Roma (2.7%), Serb (1.8 %), Bosniacs (0.8 %), Vlachs (0.5 %), other (1 %) (European Commission, 2006). 67

69 declarations of independence by Slovenia and Croatia in June 1991, FYROM held a referendum on 8 September 1991 and declared independence on 17 November Whereas Serbia agreed to Macedonian independence and Bulgaria also quickly recognized the new state (although not its language), Greece blocked the recognition of the country.19 In addition to these external problems, internal challenges included the need for democratic institutions and legal and economic reforms in a bankrupt state with the potential for multiethnic tensions. In light of the fighting in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, then President Gligorov asked the UN for an observer force that would enhance FYROM s sovereignty and international recognition, and keep the conflicts away from FYROM s borders. The mission, which was subsequently known as the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP), had as its objectives to monitor the border areas and to report any developments that could pose a threat to FYROM; to deter such threats from any source and help prevent clashes between external elements and Macedonian forces, and to use good offices to contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability in the republic (Sokalski, 2003: 102). The US also deployed troops in support of UNPREDEP in order to contain the fighting south of Bosnia and to signal to Milosevic that the US considered both Kosovo and FYROM of interest. In 1999, as the situation in Kosovo was becoming increasingly unstable and the potential for spill-over of the conflict into FYROM increased, UNPREDEP lost its mandate on 25 February 1999 due to China s veto in the Security Council (United Nations, 25 February 1999). The US UNPREDEP elements remained in FYROM initially under national control with the mission to maintain, 19 Greece used its veto power in 1991 and blocked EU recognition because of the name and symbols of the new state. Later, the country was only able to become a member of international organizations under the name Former Yugoslav Republic o f Macedonia (Schneckener, 2002). 20 The main contributors to UNPREDEP were the US (362 Troops), Norway (152 Troops), Finland (199 Troops) and Sweden (198 Troops) (United Nations 1999). 68

70 protect and preserve US infrastructure but came under NATO jurisdiction and remained in the country under a more precisely defined force protection mission and a logistical support base for NATO s Kosovo operation (The White House, Office of the Press Secretary 26 March 1999). NATO and US forces, therefore, were already in FYROM when the conflict began in early 2001, signalling the US broader interests in the region. With respect to international economic assistance, FYROM has been part of the Stability Pact since 1999 and the recipient of funds through the EU s CARDS (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation) regional programme. FYROM also signed the EU Stabilization and Association Agreement in March 2001 (European Commission, 2006) as part of the attempt to stave of violence in the initial period of the crisis. This provided some opportunity for economic and material assistance. However, smuggling and economic criminal activity along the border between FYROM and Kosovo by ethnic Albanians further complicated interethnic tensions in an economic climate where unemployment was as high as 32 per cent (Liotta and Jebb, 2002: 73). The end of the UN mandate, coupled with NATO s apparent lack of interest in internal Macedonian stability on account of an exclusive focus on the situation in Kosovo in turn created a window for ethnic Albanian extremists to radicalize the political agenda. Stability began to unravel as members of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) led by Ali Ahmeti, many infiltrating from the US sector in Kosovo, staged several attacks along the illdefined Kosovo-Macedonian border during 2000 and increasingly frequent as of January 2001 (International Crisis Group, 2001a). The rebels claimed to be fighting for Albanian national rights in FYROM, including citizenship, ownership, education, language and representative government, but there was concern on the part of the 69

71 international community that a second aim could include joining Albania or Kosovo, which would have reopened the question of borders in the Western Balkans region and could have led to wider regional instability (BBC News, 18 March 2001). The history of international involvement in FYROM illustrates that a number of international actors had been active in the country prior to the outbreak of the 2001 crisis. Given the previous failures of the EU in the Western Balkans in the 1990s, the EU s aim in the resolution of this conflict was to create a profile as an international political actor, particularly in the Western Balkan region (Interview with French official, 8 September 2005). The high stakes for regional security in the crisis also suggest that the US and the international community as a whole had an interest in the peaceful resolution of the crisis and to protect prior investments in the region. For the EU and its member states, three particular policy areas of involvement in the crisis and post-crisis intervention are of analytical importance for exploring the applicability of the Europeanization and alliance politics frameworks: EU involvement in the negotiations leading to the Ohrid Framework Agreement; the launch of the NATO operations to aid its implementation; and the politics of an eventual ESDP take-over of the NATO missions. The analysis in the individual country chapters will therefore be structured around these three policy areas in order to provide clarity and continuity as far as the structure of this thesis is concerned. c. Policy area 1: the negotiations leading to the Ohrid Framework Agreement As the nature of international intervention changed from preventive diplomacy to third-party mediation focused on crisis management and containment and later to a post-peace agreement intervention (Ackermann, 2005: ), the involvement of NATO and EU increased considerably. For the EU in particular, the crisis in FYROM 70

72 presented an opportunity to act early and decisively to absorb the lessons from Bosnia and Kosovo and demonstrate its credibility as a global actor. With respect to the negotiations leading to the Ohrid Framework Agreement the EU quite successfully managed to do so, eclipsing the OSCE as a political actor in the crisis, for instance.21 However, the presence of the revived Contact Group22 and NATO in the negotiations also raises the question of the importance attached to the EU CFSP in this particular case given the commitment among member states to NATO, and the Contact Group as forums for coordinating positions and to conduct negotiations. Subsequent chapters will analyze to what extent considerations of the role of the EU CFSP that support the Europeanization hypothesis were in direct conflict with the use of the Contact Group and NATO as negotiation forums. The EU was active in FYROM early on in the crisis, and successfully employed economic as well as political incentives in the resolution of the conflict and the eventual signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement on 8 August To be 21 The OSCE was continually present in FYROM with an observer mission and participated in the negotiations through Ambassador Robert Forwick, OSCE Personal Representative for the situation in FYROM (OSCE Press release, 30 March 2001), and it was not automatically given that the EU CFSP would assume a political lead role in the negotiations. In fact, German diplomats repeatedly stressed in interviews that they were concerned about introducing a new and untested actor in the conflict due to the likely ramifications of a failure o f the peace negotiations and one explicitly stated that s/he had expected the OSCE rather than the EU CFSP to assume a bigger part in the political negotiations and in the post-conflict phase (Interview with German officials 9 August 2005 and 21 November 2005). This is significant because it demonstrates that despite the importance of the crisis in FYROM for the establishment o f the EU CFSP as a political actor, this political objective seems to have been weighed against pragmatic considerations by at least one member state, and suggests a degree of scepticism towards the EU CFSP as a political instrument in the crisis. This in turn raises questions not only of the salience o f the Europeanization hypothesis but also o f potential internal divisions within member state administrations that will be analysed in subsequent chapters. For a more detailed discussion of Robert Forwick s role in the negotiations, see International Crisis Group (2001b). 22 The Contact Group was formed in 1994 and comprised senior officials from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the US to coordinate policy towards the Western Balkans. On the interaction between the Contact Group and the EU s institutional structure see Schwegmann (2000). One important change to the composition of the Contact Group in this case, however, consisted of Javier Solana, or Stefan Lehne, Solana s representative, in Solana s absence (Interview with German official, 21 November 2005). While the existence of directorates and the presence of the US as part of these directorates do not point towards decision-making independently from the US it does not a priori rule out processes o f Europeanization as defined in chapter 2. On the one hand, the fact that the big three member states acted outside European structures in the negotiation o f the crisis appears to weaken the Europeanization hypothesis. However, the fact that the EU CFSP in the persona of Javier had a place at the table affirms the Europeanization hypothesis because it shows that member states, in agreeing to give the EU a seat at the table, adapted policy processes to accommodate EU institutions. 71